


Watch the World Burn (The Revolution will be Televised)

by CloudAtlas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything was normal, until suddenly it wasn’t. [Vaguely Hunger Games inspired. But only vaguely.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch the World Burn (The Revolution will be Televised)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend Jenna for betaing. Crossposted from my LJ.
> 
> Thanks to the Clash for the title.

It wasn’t as if there was any warning. It was just a normal day until suddenly it wasn’t; until suddenly there was a 20 mile crater where Martha’s Vineyard used to be and a man, or what looked like a man, suddenly appearing on the TV – the TV you suddenly _couldn’t stop watching_ – with a bar of static for eyes and a mouth that never moved despite the words pouring through your mind.

No one knew who he was, and he never gave a name, and everyone called him _Him_ if they called him anything, which was rarely. He moved in a way you’ve never seen anyone move before; gracefully and so still, gliding in and out of shot. You’re not sure he’s human – he _can’t_ be human – because humans have eyes and walk and _open their mouths to talk_.

And you think something should have changed. You _want_ something to have changed, because this it too wrong and too horrible for things _not_ to have changed. But nothing has changed. Nothing _can_ change. You want things to change but they don’t and you can’t make them because suddenly your body doesn’t quite follow your mind.

And there’s a voice in your head, and you don’t know what it says, only that every word fills you with fear, makes you want to crawl away from yourself and hide. Covering you ears doesn’t stop it. Loud music and silence and pain don’t stop it. And it would drive you insane apart from things _can’t change_ , and outwardly you go on as if nothing has, but you can see in the eyes of you mother and brother and father and the newsreaders and interviewees and everyone on TV that they know what you know.

But just as you can’t change anything, you know you can’t speak about this, because Georgia O’Malley was found ripped to pieces in her home with what looked an inverted crucifix branded between her eyes. As was Jeremy Collins, and lovely Peter Thompson – though he was found with an inverted crucifix branded to the largest bloody chunk left – and somehow you know it’s because they did something, rebelled against this _nothing_ and this _everything_ that suddenly happened.

So even though everything has changed, nothing has changed. Until that day when something did change, and suddenly you find yourself with your family watching TV. And you don’t want to be watching TV, because everything on it is too horrible and grotesque, but you _can’t move_. You’re no longer in control of your body. And you know that _He_ has something to do with this because the voice from your head is now also on the TV, whispering those same horrible words over images of people fighting fighting fighting for their lives against monsters and shadow men and things you feel must have been dredged from the depths of your nightmares because you have never been so scared in your whole life but you _can’t stop watching_.

_This is what you’re worth_ , _He_ says in your head and from the TV and from the wall and from your brother’s mouth. _Look as they run and scream. As their blood paints the walls._ And you’re going mad, but _He_ won’t let you break.

It begins to happen regularly. Every two days or so you find yourself wandering into the front room against your will and switching on the TV to watch another twenty or so people fight against nightmares. And suddenly you realise that some of these people, they aren’t American. They aren’t from round here at all. You see a Chinese girl of about 12 slammed repeatedly into walls. An old African man having his skin pealed from his body, agonisingly slowly. And you are allowed to realise that this is the world, and twenty or so a day every two days will take years to reach seven billion. And you’re going to have to watch the world die, live, on TV.

Apart from, not everyone, because Jessica Stein was found nailed five meters up the outside wall of the church with her guts hanging from her mouth. And you are allowed to wonder what it is she did, that meant that she died there, without an audience, rather in the houses of horror broadcast into the world’s front room every couple of days.

Once, for about two months, the house in which the unlucky few played out their circus of death against the denizens of Hell did not change. And more and more people were sent in to fight for life in amongst the remains of those who had already lost theirs. And no one ever won. And _He_ found it amusing, entertaining; _they think they can beat it, my game. But they cannot. The harder they fight the more it hurts._

Desensitisation to the carnage never comes. _He_ won’t let it, and every new ‘game’ brings an ever heightened feeling of horror and despair. And _He_ laughs, laughs like cold hands on your back and the soft parts of you being filled with maggots. Gurgling and filled with more horror until you can hardly stand it. Always in your head, never to be blocked out. You watch more and more people go in, and one day it’s Stephanie Taylor from down the road, mother of four children who have to watch as she’s ripped to shreds by shadows with long claws.

And Phoebe Bachmann is found in bloody chunks in her home, inverted crucifix between empty, blood filled eye sockets; Solomon Mbuto strung up like bunting between the telegraph poles downtown, only identifiable by his tattooed and branded right hand.

And you don’t know how it happens but one day, the day that the White House is used as the venue for the slaughter, something changes again, in this new world that never changes. The damned are 12 in number; an old woman, a girl of 15 or so, an athletic and terrified man, a tall man in plaid, a pregnant Native American, an Arab Sheik, a man with green eyes, twins in matching t-shirts, a man missing an arm, an Indian holy man and a young woman with a birth mark on her face.

It is normal, or what passes as normal these days. Apart from the man with green eyes throws a marble bust at a camera almost immediately. The old woman has her eyes pulled out and is made to run. The pregnant woman is sliced open by something that looks like a girl but can throw you against a wall with the movement of her head, and the tall man, the tall man has disappeared.

You can feel the difference. But you can’t turn to your family (father and brother now, mother was found in jars in the fridge one day, each labelled with an inverted crucifix) to see if they feel it too. But _He_ is still speaking, oily words that ruin your mind and attack your senses. And suddenly the green eyed man is in front of the camera, covered in blood but alive. And he smiles.

Nobody smiles these days.

And a voice rings out; out of the speakers in the slaughter house and the speakers in the TV – but it’s not _Him_ , definitely not _Him_ , because the voice isn’t in your head. And in two lines of a language you’ve never heard before, this world that now never changes, changes, and _His_ voice is gone, replaced by everything being pulled in, and then out, without moving. An explosion without sound. And the compulsion to watch is lifted, and the horror slams in, and your father throws up on the floor immediately but you, you can’t. You need to know what is happening.

And you see some of the nightmares on the TV snap out of existence. And the voice changes, chanting something, and the girl who is not a girl erupts into black smoke, and the light from outside darkens as the sky is filled with black smoke, and then the black smoke is gone. And you can feel _Him_ in your mind, trying to wrestle back control.

And a not-man with teeth like you’ve never seen before suddenly comes up behind the green eyed man on TV. And you want to yell, to warn him, but he swings around and with another marble bust, beheads the not-man. And the tall man appears with what looks like ceremonial swords from a state room somewhere, and they stand back to back, and they fight whatever comes towards them while the chanting goes on and on and you can feel _Him_ getting stronger and stronger again in your head and suddenly the voice changes and barks out three words and a noise that isn’t a noise sears through your head, and static blazes across the TV screen and it’s quiet; on the TV, outside, in your head.

And the green eyed man says “holy shit, it worked” and you suddenly realise that _He_ had been speaking your native language, because this man is speaking English and looking freaked out and pleased with himself all at once. And the tall man smiles at him and you realised they definitely know each other.

Suddenly another man is there, and you want to warn the two men on the TV screen, because this man has a shadow that never stays still, shifting and morphing from wings to animals with too many legs, shrinking and expanding and never staying still. But the two men see him. And they smile and a conversation plays out between the three of them with eyes and head tilts and quirks of the mouth. And the tall man shrugs and the green eyed man quirks his mouth again. The man with the shadow moves to stand between them and lays his hand against the tall man’s face and you can hear him now; in your head in your native language and from the TV in English. His was the chanting voice, and you’re fairly sure the world owes these men their lives and the shadow man’s shadow gets bigger and the tall man says;

“Um hi, my name is Sam, and this is Dean, and Cas…”


End file.
